February 24, 2004

Meanwhile, In The Warren

You see, it's all about the votes. At the most, only 3-5% of Americans describe themselves as gay or lesbian. On the other hand, some 50% of Americans describe themselves as Evangelical Christian or Catholic. And gay marriage is an issue which will mobilize them like no other. If just 10% of "conservative Christians" show up at the polls this fall, they will neutralize every gay vote in America.

Some people need to get a life Asking for visitation rights of a cat is ludicrous and is just another way that the animal rights crowd is trying to give animals equal status with people.

I also knew a tough old Scot once, who won the British Military Medal in Aden, defending his gun position at bayonet point. When the SAS found his position, he was surrounded by twenty some-odd skewered Arabs, and still conducting firing missions, albeit slowly, given that his whole platoon and his immediate gun crew were dead or gravely wounded. He was a war hero.

You sir - you received a bronze star and a silver star, one for pulling a man out of the water under fire, and the other for chasing a wounded VC into a hut to kill him. No "V" devices there, I notice. Yeah, we know about the three purple hearts for nicks - I'd be impressed, but Al Santoli wrote about officers in 'Nam getting purple hearts for stubbing their toes running for bunkers during mortar attacks. So no, I'm not impressed. Nor am I impressed by the couple acts of relative bravery - I'd wager that damn near every infantryman exposed to fire in Viet Nam did a lot more than that, for a lot less fruit salad.

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I guess I didn't go to 'Nam, so I'm a reg'lar right wing chickenhawk in your eyes, compared to ol' Blood & Steel Kerry.

I would have rather not gotten into it, which is why I compared Kerry to other people I've known rather than to myself. I am definitely not a hero, but I've known a couple heros, and the "Kerry as War Hero" line strikes me as particularly odious bullshit - a man who lets himself get mistaken for a war hero repeatedly for professional gain is pretty low, and denigrates the men who are real heros. Listen to John McCain talk about whether he is a hero, for instance.

But since you decided to call my history into question, I spent approximately a year total in two combat zones, one up front with an infantry division, another primarily with U.S. and foreign special operations forces operating in a gnarly place that isn't well reported about. About a decade "in", airborne, mildly decorated, got a terminally screwed up back and intermittent bouts of some parasitic, undiagnoseable malarial gunge to show for it.

I am particularly appalled by Kerry's claim, "since I'm a decorated war hero, you can't use my voting record to question the wisdom of my foreign policy." If combat non-vet Saxby Chambliss isn't entitled to call into question Max Clelland's voting record, or Kerry's voting record, than perhaps I am.